Yes they are, but is it a bad thing? From your words and the connotation of your words i can conclude your subjective feelings and opinion on that. But from a more objective perspective (levels above) is it a bad thing? Or is it just cold evolution?

And back to the other topic, you can still benefit from this system steemit, and it will even grow more, but with keeping in mind, that it's dying (no one knows how fast and the impact of the updates on the ponzi), have you looked for alternatives? Or are you "All in" ?